As an old hat new hat
Those of you who know me best are aware of my affinity for hats. Through the years, I’ve always been told how good I look in them . . . fedoras, newsboys, deerslayers, baseball/golf caps, fezzes, berets, even yarmulkes. Perhaps it’s the shape of my head, or a matter of peoples’ preference that I cover […]
Toto . . . this sure as heck isn’t New Hampshire
I begin the first of a baker’s dozen Puerto Rico-based posts. I call these Puerto Rico Blog II. Many of you will, no doubt, refer to them otherwise. We arrived on the Aguadilla red eye (4:20 AM), two days ago. As soon as daylight made its appearance, we began to see familiar people and sites that […]
Brief hiatus
Hello all. Owing to responsibilities related to teaching, research, and moving to our Rincon-area abode, this blog will be experiencing a brief hiatus. I will resume posting from Puerto Rico during the first week in January. In the meantime, here’s wishing you and yours a happy holiday season and a healthy 2015.
Thanksgiving is about much more than turkey
Like many families, we look forward to our annual Thanksgiving celebration. Much has changed since I first joined in my wife’s family celebration. In those days, we were among the youngest in the room. Nearly all of my attention was directed toward my fiancé (that hasn’t changed, even after more than forty years of marriage). […]
One of my highlights
This past Friday, I had one of the highlights of my years as a writer. Thirty-six hours prior, the terrific publisher, George Geers, approved my seventh book–“Whacked”–for publication this coming spring. That alone would have kept me warm through the cold spell that has hit New Hampshire. However, this proved to be chapter one. I arrived at Concord’s beautiful […]
Once upon a time in the West
Several months ago, I promised to tell you an interesting story about my next book, tentatively titled, “An Eye for an Eye.” The story about this book has two interesting segments, the first of which dates back more than half a century. When I was a boy of 9 or 10, my best friend, Rich Kallan, […]
Polling these days is not easy
It’s no secret that I didn’t enjoy the outcome of the elections a few nights ago. However, one thing that did impress me was the success of a few polling companies at predicting the results. Ignoring Rasmussen and New England College, whose efforts are terribly slanted politically, some pollsters shone brightly. Andy Smith, who (in this longtime […]
21 days is a lot of time on your hands
All of this talk about Ebola and quarantine has set me to thinking. Suppose you were faced with an obligatory quarantine of twenty-one days. Presuming you were disease-free, how would this work for you? Are you one of those “people . . . people who need people,” or would you find twenty-one days without direct […]
Atlanta–so much more than a baseball town
A year ago, I learned that the annual tourism outlook forum would be held in Atlanta, home of my beloved Braves. As a fan of 56 years (but, who’s counting?), I had visions of World Series tickets dancing in my head. Things looked good until September, when the Braves forgot two main goals of baseball: […]
Political ads: the 21st century’s pay toilets
Those of you who reside in overwhelmingly blue states, or red states for that matter, may never realize how fortunate you are. You are shielded from the onslaught of political advertising that we more ideologically balanced states face every 2-4 years. In Vermont, where the two present US senators are bullet-proof, why would the Koch brothers […]